The exemplary systems and methods described herein relate to the fields of Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) printing and color printing.
Color printing and MICR printing have been widely used by the imaging industry to print images on various types of recording medium. Color printing is a process using color ink/toner to create color images. MICR is a monochrome printing process using magnetic ink/toner and special fonts to create machine readable information. A document having both color printed information and MICR printed information may be aesthetic and may be quickly processed. Such documents have been particularly appealing to the security industry. Specifically, the combination of color printing and MICR printing has been helpful in creating and encoding security documents and/or negotiable documents, such as checks, stocks, bonds, legal documents, vehicle titles, gift certificates, and the like.
For example, color printing and MICR printing have been particularly useful in generating financial documents, such as checks, accepted by financial institutions. Generally, non-variable information including check backgrounds, such as graphical designs, pictures, and the like, has been printed via offset color presses. Variable information, for example, information that may differ from check to check, has been printed via MICR printers. The variable information may include a customer's name, address, telephone number, bank name, a check number, and the like, as well as, an MICR line that may include a bank routing number and a personal account number printed at the bottom of each check. However, traditional offset color presses cannot produce variable information in color, for example, different color information on every sheet of paper.
Digital color presses do allow variable information to be printed in color, and also provide a larger range of color backgrounds than traditional offset color printers. As a result, variable information such as a person's name may be produced in color, and the background may be any picture, such as the person's dog. Therefore, digital color presses provide greater options than traditional offset color presses. However, in printing checks using traditional offset presses or digital color presses, the check backgrounds are typically printed by color presses at one location, and the variable check information are subsequently printed by MICR printers at another location.